Remember Her

“Do you remember the woman at the wedding, she gave that long speech. Cried the whole time?” my wife asked.

“Then danced the rest of the night?”

“Yeah.”

I acknowledged I did remember her.

“She died.”

I was shocked, It didn’t feel right. My memory of that woman and death did not fit together. “How?”

“Breast Cancer.”

She was so alive six months ago.

It did not seem right those words and that memory. That woman who cried so hard at the microphone while giving a speech. She let her heart flow and the words had meaning. I don’t remember them individually, I can only remember thinking it was a speech to someone they loved and were letting them go, releasing them, saying goodbye, I remember her saying, “He is yours now,” though I doubt she actually said that.

I had wondered why she was so emotional.

She was saying goodbye. Maybe they had moments after. Maybe it wasn’t a complete surprise. Maybe she was practicing, maybe, maybe, maybe.

I remember her dancing. It was during dinner, right after the speeches. The music started and she was there on the dance floor. Shoes off and she was going, doing it, and I think about the quote dance like no one is watching and that was what she did. She didn’t seem to care which song played. She closed her eyes and danced. We all watched. Maybe judged. She didn’t care. She never left the dance floor. I thought maybe she was drunk, but she never had a beverage in her hand, or at least she wouldn’t in my mind, nor do I now think she was intoxicated, maybe on life, the last vestiges of hers, maybe taking it, savoring the last bite, enjoying the last drop.

How can someone live that hard at the end, so free, and make it look so easy.

In my mind she knew she dying on that day, in my memory, she will always be more alive than anyone else in that room.

I never met her. We never spoke. Somehow though I think I will remember her for the rest of my life.